Yesterday a friend of mine who has just started lifting weights mentioned that she was surprised at what little upper body strength she had. That started me thinking about my upper body vs lower body strength.
I can just zip right through pull sets where as I feel as if I'm trudging through kick sets. I realize that means my kick is weak. (I've had coaches watch my kick to make sure I'm kicking correctly and I always throw in some kick sets even if there isn't one in the workout)
Anyway, my question is: What is typical for most swimmers, is pulling generally faster than kicking? In other word, should the time for, say 100m of pulling, be faster than 100m of kicking, or vice versa, or should they be about equal?
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laineybug -- My pull is faster. Way faster. Kicking alone for me is about half the speed of pulling. (Note: I have a lousy kick, and I only kick enough on my overall stroke to keep my tail end from sinking.) This has made kicking to be a very discouraging exercise for me, and so for years (decades) I have eschewed kicking.
BUT! If I do kicking sets with fins (like zoomers) I can actually approach my normal swimming pace. (I can sustain 500 yards at 1:30 per 100 yards.) Since discovering this, I have been able to increase the amount of kicking I do in my workouts to the point that I do 1500 yards of kicking 3x per week. It is starting to show in muscle tone on my legs which have been pencil-thin sticks all my life. Yet I still have not been able to incorporate more kick into my overall stroke, and kicking without fins is slow as ever.
As for back pain, I have learned to work through that. Actually if you read in swimming magazines they say not to use a kickboard because the curge in your back to hold your head up does put a lot of strain on your back. They say to put your hands in front of your head and put your face in the water, and come up for breath as needed. Even better, do your kicking ON YOUR SIDE with your lower arm extended in front and you top arm down to your side. Then to breathe all you have to do is tip your face up slightly and voila! Having said that, I admit that I haven't mastered that at all. I still use the kickboard in the traditional manner. And if I'm not careful I start feeling strain in my lower back after 500-1000 yards. So what I do is simply keep my face in the water and lift my head only to take a breath (and on turns.) If I start needing to pant, putting my face in the water is no longer practical, and then I just hold my head up. If I mix these up, I find that the strain on my lower back is significantly less, and I rarely get a cramp or spasm in my back, nor does my back feel weak afterwards.
laineybug -- My pull is faster. Way faster. Kicking alone for me is about half the speed of pulling. (Note: I have a lousy kick, and I only kick enough on my overall stroke to keep my tail end from sinking.) This has made kicking to be a very discouraging exercise for me, and so for years (decades) I have eschewed kicking.
BUT! If I do kicking sets with fins (like zoomers) I can actually approach my normal swimming pace. (I can sustain 500 yards at 1:30 per 100 yards.) Since discovering this, I have been able to increase the amount of kicking I do in my workouts to the point that I do 1500 yards of kicking 3x per week. It is starting to show in muscle tone on my legs which have been pencil-thin sticks all my life. Yet I still have not been able to incorporate more kick into my overall stroke, and kicking without fins is slow as ever.
As for back pain, I have learned to work through that. Actually if you read in swimming magazines they say not to use a kickboard because the curge in your back to hold your head up does put a lot of strain on your back. They say to put your hands in front of your head and put your face in the water, and come up for breath as needed. Even better, do your kicking ON YOUR SIDE with your lower arm extended in front and you top arm down to your side. Then to breathe all you have to do is tip your face up slightly and voila! Having said that, I admit that I haven't mastered that at all. I still use the kickboard in the traditional manner. And if I'm not careful I start feeling strain in my lower back after 500-1000 yards. So what I do is simply keep my face in the water and lift my head only to take a breath (and on turns.) If I start needing to pant, putting my face in the water is no longer practical, and then I just hold my head up. If I mix these up, I find that the strain on my lower back is significantly less, and I rarely get a cramp or spasm in my back, nor does my back feel weak afterwards.
